One of the most important decisions that are made in ANY instruction is how it is designed. If training does not take into account all the possible variables that go into design it will be poor, if it is designed effectively it has a greater chance of being effective. On this page I will look at four different types of design modeling that are used in creating training. We will also discuss some of the various roles you as an instructional designer may fall into while working on a project. As an instructional designer you may be working on multiple projects and fulfilling various rolls in each or even multiple rolls in the same project. It is important to understand what each of roles plays in the design and how they interact. We will also look at how people learn. We will look at behaviorism, cognitive, social - cognitive theories of learning. We will also look at motivation and how it affects both the learner and designer. It is important to understand how your people will learn the information you are trying to impart on them.
Instructional Design Theories
PADDIE+M
ADDIE is the generic process used by most instructional designers. The five phases – Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation – represent a flexible guideline for building training. The Navy has added two more phases to help round the process. At the beginning they have added Planning and at the end they have added Maintenance (Naval Education and Training Command, 2012).
Planning: Identify and clarify problem. Begin determining resources you may need and sequence the events.
Analysis: Establish skills and knowledge to be taught. Create working objectives.
Design: Put Objectives in instructional order.
Develop: Begin creating instructional material for Instructor and student (i.e. Instructor guide, trainee guide).
Implementation: Begin teaching class. In the Navy the first class will have special requirements to help with next two steps.
Evaluation: Review assessments to insure material is being understood. This phase can also be done during and/or after each other phase to insure that each phase is supporting the training objectives.
Maintenance: Make changes to refine training within training objectives.
Most people see this process as a step-by-step process. I have tried to point out that it is more of an exploratory problem solving technique that uses evaluation and feed back to improve performance. An example would be if you in the Design phase and found that you had missed a whole area need to connect two parts of training, you would go back into the previous phases and add the appropriate items
The System Approach
Another well known design model is the Systems Approach or The Dick and Carey Model. The model was originally published by Walter Dick and Lou Carey in their book, The Systematic Design of Instruction(Dick & Carey, 1996). This model consists of ten parts:
Identify Instructional Goals: Describe skills, knowledge or attitudes that learner should acquire.
Conduct Instructional Analysis: Identify knowledge and skills learner will need.
Analyze Learners and Context: Identify learners to include prior skill experience, prerequisite knowledge needed.
Write Performance Objectives: Describe behavior, condition and criteria of what you want trainee to do.
Develop Assessment Instrument: Define testing strategy and purposes of pretesting, posttesting and practical testing.
Develop Instructional Strategy: Define any pre-learning activities, content presentation and assessments.
Develop and Select Instructional Materials.
Design and conduct formative evaluation of Instruction: Review material to see if there are any place needing improvement.
Revise Instruction: make changes to any poor test items or poor instruction
Design and conduct Summative Evaluation
The Dick & Carey model is quite popular in the e-learning literature. It can be used in two different ways: One is as a general guideline that one can use as starting point for thinking about an own design rule. The second is with all its details including its behavior and cognitive background. This model is based on the idea that instruction can be broken down into smaller components.
Common roles and responsibilities.
Now that we have looked at a couple of the instructional design process that you may use, we will now look at four of the basic roles that you may be expected to fill (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004). This list is not all inclusive but is made up of the four most common roles.
Instructional Designer: this will normally be the coordinating person in charge of the project.
Instructor: This is the person that is actually giving the lesson. This person should be able to perform all the required tasks to carry out the instructional plan.
Subject-Matter Expert (SME): this is a person who is considered to be an expert in the content of the training. This can be determined by certification or by peers. This can be the same person as the instructor.
Evaluators: These are the people that are used to develop the instruments that are used to determine student learning. They can also be used to help during a pilot of the training (Naval Education and Training Command, 2012).
Each of these roles provides integral information during the design process. It is vital that each person knows his/her part and is willing help each other during the design process.
Learning Theories
Learning theories are used to describe how learning takes place to obtain specific types of outcomes. Most instructional designers will use various type of learning theories in their design depending on the type of outcome desired.
Behavioral: B.F. Skinner’s work emphasized the effect of external stimuli to show how behavior could be changed (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004).
Cognitive: Paiget and Bruner focused on how an individual used the knowledge that they had previously stored to make connection to what they were now learning (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004).
Social – Cognitive: Vygostky showed how peer learning can be used to increase the knowledge intake of people (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004).
Besides these theories you must also look at the motivation of your learners and instructors. While students are responsible for their own learning, you can greatly enhance their desire to learn by using various motivational techniques. However, to provide appropriate incentives for individual students to learn, you must learn to recognize their needs, incentives, and drives. The goal of instruction is to motivate students to learn the material. By understanding what drives students you can better motivate them to learn.
Conclusion
On this page we have looked at a couple of design concepts. Please realize that these are only two in a sea of many. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. I believe the best one is a combination of all of them. By taking the strengths of one you can negate the weakness of another. Also as designers we cannot get caught up in the rigidity that some of these systems are presented in. You must be able to have some flexibility to accommodate change.
Next we looked at some rolls that you may be asked to play in your future as an Instructional Designer. Each role provides vital information to the creating of the training. In some cases you may even be asked to fill multiple roles in this creating. The key is for open and honest communication. This allows for maximum utilization of each person’s knowledge of training and the material covered.
Finally we looked at some of the way our students learn or retain the material. The ones covered here are not all inclusive but are some of the commons theories. A well thought out course will use as many different theories to aid in the learning process as possible. It will also help motivate student to want to learn the material.
References
Dick, W., & Carey, L. (1996). The Systematic Design of Instruction. New York: Haper Collins College Publishers.
Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., & Kemp, J. E. (2004). Designing Effective Instruction 4th Edition. New Jeresy: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Naval Education and Training Command. (2012). NAVEDTRA 136. Pensecola.
Instructional Design Theories
PADDIE+M
ADDIE is the generic process used by most instructional designers. The five phases – Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation – represent a flexible guideline for building training. The Navy has added two more phases to help round the process. At the beginning they have added Planning and at the end they have added Maintenance (Naval Education and Training Command, 2012).Planning: Identify and clarify problem. Begin determining resources you may need and sequence the events.
Analysis: Establish skills and knowledge to be taught. Create working objectives.
Design: Put Objectives in instructional order.
Develop: Begin creating instructional material for Instructor and student (i.e. Instructor guide, trainee guide).
Implementation: Begin teaching class. In the Navy the first class will have special requirements to help with next two steps.
Evaluation: Review assessments to insure material is being understood. This phase can also be done during and/or after each other phase to insure that each phase is supporting the training objectives.
Maintenance: Make changes to refine training within training objectives.
Most people see this process as a step-by-step process. I have tried to point out that it is more of an exploratory problem solving technique that uses evaluation and feed back to improve performance. An example would be if you in the Design phase and found that you had missed a whole area need to connect two parts of training, you would go back into the previous phases and add the appropriate items
The System Approach
Another well known design model is the Systems Approach or The Dick and Carey Model. The model was originally published by Walter Dick and Lou Carey in their book, The Systematic Design of Instruction(Dick & Carey, 1996). This model consists of ten parts:Identify Instructional Goals: Describe skills, knowledge or attitudes that learner should acquire.
Conduct Instructional Analysis: Identify knowledge and skills learner will need.
Analyze Learners and Context: Identify learners to include prior skill experience, prerequisite knowledge needed.
Write Performance Objectives: Describe behavior, condition and criteria of what you want trainee to do.
Develop Assessment Instrument: Define testing strategy and purposes of pretesting, posttesting and practical testing.
Develop Instructional Strategy: Define any pre-learning activities, content presentation and assessments.
Develop and Select Instructional Materials.
Design and conduct formative evaluation of Instruction: Review material to see if there are any place needing improvement.
Revise Instruction: make changes to any poor test items or poor instruction
Design and conduct Summative Evaluation
The Dick & Carey model is quite popular in the e-learning literature. It can be used in two different ways: One is as a general guideline that one can use as starting point for thinking about an own design rule. The second is with all its details including its behavior and cognitive background. This model is based on the idea that instruction can be broken down into smaller components.
Common roles and responsibilities.
Now that we have looked at a couple of the instructional design process that you may use, we will now look at four of the basic roles that you may be expected to fill (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004). This list is not all inclusive but is made up of the four most common roles.
Instructional Designer: this will normally be the coordinating person in charge of the project.
Instructor: This is the person that is actually giving the lesson. This person should be able to perform all the required tasks to carry out the instructional plan.
Subject-Matter Expert (SME): this is a person who is considered to be an expert in the content of the training. This can be determined by certification or by peers. This can be the same person as the instructor.
Evaluators: These are the people that are used to develop the instruments that are used to determine student learning. They can also be used to help during a pilot of the training (Naval Education and Training Command, 2012).
Each of these roles provides integral information during the design process. It is vital that each person knows his/her part and is willing help each other during the design process.
Learning Theories
Learning theories are used to describe how learning takes place to obtain specific types of outcomes. Most instructional designers will use various type of learning theories in their design depending on the type of outcome desired.
Behavioral: B.F. Skinner’s work emphasized the effect of external stimuli to show how behavior could be changed (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004).
Cognitive: Paiget and Bruner focused on how an individual used the knowledge that they had previously stored to make connection to what they were now learning (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004).
Social – Cognitive: Vygostky showed how peer learning can be used to increase the knowledge intake of people (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004).
Besides these theories you must also look at the motivation of your learners and instructors. While students are responsible for their own learning, you can greatly enhance their desire to learn by using various motivational techniques. However, to provide appropriate incentives for individual students to learn, you must learn to recognize their needs, incentives, and drives. The goal of instruction is to motivate students to learn the material. By understanding what drives students you can better motivate them to learn.
Conclusion
On this page we have looked at a couple of design concepts. Please realize that these are only two in a sea of many. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. I believe the best one is a combination of all of them. By taking the strengths of one you can negate the weakness of another. Also as designers we cannot get caught up in the rigidity that some of these systems are presented in. You must be able to have some flexibility to accommodate change.
Next we looked at some rolls that you may be asked to play in your future as an Instructional Designer. Each role provides vital information to the creating of the training. In some cases you may even be asked to fill multiple roles in this creating. The key is for open and honest communication. This allows for maximum utilization of each person’s knowledge of training and the material covered.
Finally we looked at some of the way our students learn or retain the material. The ones covered here are not all inclusive but are some of the commons theories. A well thought out course will use as many different theories to aid in the learning process as possible. It will also help motivate student to want to learn the material.
References
Dick, W., & Carey, L. (1996). The Systematic Design of Instruction. New York: Haper Collins College Publishers.Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., & Kemp, J. E. (2004). Designing Effective Instruction 4th Edition. New Jeresy: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Naval Education and Training Command. (2012). NAVEDTRA 136. Pensecola.
Page Author: John Carroll